STATISTICS

Statistics is an inherent part of UNCTAD. Being the United Nations’ focal point for the integrated treatment of trade and development and the interrelated issues in the areas of finance, technology, investment and sustainable development, UNCTAD compiles, validates and processes a wide range of data collected from national and international sources.

In focus

Economic Development in Africa Report 2017: "Tourism for transformative and inclusive growth."

Tourism is a dynamic and fast growing sector in Africa; it boasted virtually uninterrupted growth from 1995 to 2014. It has become a key contributor to the continent's GDP and generates more than 21 million jobs.
And importantly, intra-African tourism is rising. Data on intra-African and intra-regional tourism have been specifically compiled for the 2017 Economic development in Africa Report.

Statistics and SDGs

UNCTAD is responsible for dealing with economic and sustainable development issues with a focus on trade, finance, investment and technology. Through these actions, UNCTAD contributes to progress on 52 specific Sustainable Development Goal targets, grouped under 10 of the 17 SDGs.

Statistics capacity building

UNCTAD assists national statistical agencies in developing and transition countries in their data collection and dissemination efforts. In cooperation with UN agencies, development banks and other international organisations, such as Eurostat. UNCTAD coordinates technical cooperation activities with donors and other organisations to avoid duplication of work and to encourage complementarity and synergy. For this purpose UNCTAD contributes to the Partner Report on Support to Statistics (PRESS) maintained by Paris21, which provides a snapshot of support to statistical capacity development worldwide and, thus, is a valuable tool for collaboration building among statistical international organisations.

Explore UNCTAD statistics in our data centre, compare key indicators from countries all over the world in our Country Profiles and discover a selection of key facts in our infrographic library.

Latest key facts

Container port throughput in 2016: In 2016, Asian economies continue dominating the global port traffic. Four out of the five economies with the most port traffic were from Asia. The global leader, China, recorded a total of 200 million TEU - four times the port traffic of the United States (48 million TEU).

Trade in services, Q2 2017:World services exports grew by 5% in the 2nd quarter 2017, year-on-year. Both transport and travel went up by over 6%. Other services global exports recorded a 4% increase.

Total merchandise trade in 2016: New data show a decrease of total merchandise trade by 3.0 per cent - slightly less than the data released in May. Especially the drop of LDCs' and LLDCs' exports turns out less severe. The new figures rely on a broader basis of input data than the spring release.

UNCTAD has launched its annual Handbook of Statistics in a new, user-friendly format to celebrate its fiftieth year of publication. The 2017 edition has been overhauled entirely to make it shorter and easier to read, and features a wealth of maps, charts, and infographics.

​Toilets save lives because human waste spreads killer diseases. However, 4.5 billion people live without a household toilet that safely disposes of their waste. World Toilet Day is about inspiring action to tackle the global sanitation crisis.